Hermesvilla

Hermesvilla stands in Vienna’s Lainzer Tiergarten, a former Habsburg hunting ground surrounded by protected Wienerwald landscape. The palace combines late Romantic architecture with gardens, historic stables, and a restaurant serving Viennese cuisine and game.

Emperor Franz Joseph I commissioned Karl Freiherr von Hasenauer to build it for Empress Elisabeth between 1882 and 1886. A white marble Hermes by Ernst Herter stands in the garden, commissioned by Elisabeth. Inside, original imperial furnishings accompany cultural-history exhibitions and murals by Gustav Klimt, Hans Makart, and Victor Tilgner. Elisabeth’s private rooms include a gymnasium with rings and a balance beam. Her bedroom contains a baroque state bed from Maria Theresa’s era, Shakespearean scenes, and a spiral staircase to the garden.

The former stables retain partitions, tie stalls, and a circular Rondeau for exercising horses in bad weather. Lipizzan stallions from the Spanish Riding School used these stables as summer quarters until 2005. A 2.5-metre Carrara-marble Elisabeth sculpture outside weighs 6.5 tonnes and expresses duty, escape, and freedom.